Take Action: Save the Catskill Forest Preserve

Save the Catskill Forest Preserve

Tell Governor Spitzer not to allow the Belleayre Resort development within the historic Catskill State Park.

You can read more about the Catskill Forest Preserve here.

Governor Eliot Spitzer

Dear Governor Spitzer,

(Edit Letter Below)

I am very concerned about the proposed Belleayre Resort development project, in the historic Catskill Park, that is currently under consideration by the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

As proposed, this massive development would involve two large hotels, one or two 18-hole golf courses and hundreds of time-share units, with massive construction spread across hundreds of acres of mountainsides and mountain ridges. The project would destroy more than 100,000 trees, pave over dozens of acres of forested watershed lands, and constitute the biggest development project ever within the Catskill Park boundaries. The developers' "compromise" plan, announced in summer 2006, does not go nearly far enough in safeguarding this environmentally fragile landscape.

The construction and operation of the Belleayre Resort development would jeopardize world-famous trout streams with runoff and pollution; strain local roadways; put water sources and the Catskill Forest Preserve at risk; and lead to secondary growth and development that would degrade the Catskills watershed ecosystem and threaten the drinking water supply of nine million New Yorkers.

The Department of Environmental Conservation should not approve this project without a significant downsizing that completely protects the fragile 1,240-acre eastern portion of the project site (by sale of that parcel to the state for inclusion in the Catskill Forest Preserve) and that allows for environmentally sound development only on the smaller, western parcel at a size and scale that is appropriate in view of the location of the project.

I urge you not to approve any permits or a final environmental impact statement for the Belleayre Resort project unless and until the developers come up with such a scaled-down project that is fully protective of the state's priceless water resources and historic Catskill Forest Preserve.

Sincerely,

[Your name]
[Your address]

Sincerely,

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